


No Visitors on Nightmare Night

by Burgie



Category: Star Stable Online
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 21:31:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12517012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgie/pseuds/Burgie
Summary: Louisa gets a fright in the wash stall of her stable.





	No Visitors on Nightmare Night

Louisa shivered as she led Little Chip inside her stable. The text message that Halloween on Jorvik had begun had arrived as she'd been riding away from Goldenleaf Forest. She hated how afraid she was in Golden Hills Valley now, it was all Katja's fault that she couldn't see the place without thinking about that terrifying race that still haunted her nightmares. Now, she was glad that she had Herman's house to stay in at Jorvik Stables, though she sorely missed being able to see her father.

"Oh, you decorated," said Louisa, immediately seeing the ghost and bat decorations strung from the rafters, as well as the pumpkins on the stall dividers and the hanging caged candles. They lent a wonderful smell to the place, though Louisa was more than a little concerned about stable fires. She trusted Maya to look after it, though. There were also some fake cobwebs strewn about the place, which made Louisa shudder. There had been real cobwebs here once but, after the incident with Huntsman, she'd charged Maya with eradicating any evidence of spiders.

"Yeah," said Maya, looking up from the book that she was reading from up in the hayloft. She swung her legs off the edge of it. "Pretty cool, right? I took inspiration from my home."

"As long as there aren't any fake spiders," said Louisa with a laugh. Maya smiled.

"Oh, don't worry, I knew that the fake cobwebs would be pushing it," said Maya. She put her book down. "So, are you planning on participating in any of the events this year?"

"Yeah, that's why I came to get Race," said Louisa, putting Little Chip away and heading to the tack room. Once she'd grabbed the Halloween tack from two years ago (Westie still wore last year's tack, which looked excellent on him), she brought Race out of her stall and tacked her up with the colourful purple and yellow tack.

"I wish I could participate," said Maya with a wistful sigh. "But I'm too busy."

"You can if you want," said Louisa. "The little ghosts give you money and a gift for sending them on their way, and Eve always gives you some money for running around in the castle cellar."

"Thanks but Mrs Holdsworth won't teach me the secret phrase," said Maya. "I'm not to be trusted with secrets, I guess."

"Aww, Maya," said Louisa, heading towards the wardrobe to find some matching clothes. "I'll bring you back what food I get from the ghosts." Maya smiled.

"Thanks, Louisa," said Maya. And then Louisa screamed. "Louisa? Are you okay?" Maya looked over the edge of the hayloft and found her friend sitting on the ground opposite the wash stall, curled into a ball as if to shield herself from the world, crying. "Oh no." She'd heard that someone had done something to the pipes, but she'd been too busy stringing bat and ghost garlands to notice, she'd just assumed that they were trying to get the wash stall working. Apparently not.

Maya quickly climbed down the ladder, almost sliding down, and ran over to her frightened friend.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry, I didn't realise they did anything more than put the green mist in the pipes," said Maya, skidding to kneel in front of her friend. She put her hands on Louisa's shoulders, and was dismayed to find her trembling. She'd never seen anyone so frightened before. Frowning, Maya got up and walked over to the wash stall.

"Don't go in there!" Louisa screamed, lunging for her ankle. Maya wanted to see what had scared her so much, but she didn't want to make things worse, so she stayed still.

"Okay," said Maya, turning around. "I won't. Do you want me to do anything? Call anyone? I've never seen you so frightened before. I can get Goldie if you want, or Westie? Maybe Smokeeye?"

"Call Lisa," said Louisa, and sniffed. She couldn't look at the wash stall.

"Okay," said Maya. "I'll do that. Do you want to come and sit in the break room with me? I think Lisa left some of her cocoa powder here."

"Okay," said Louisa, her voice small. She sobbed and got to her feet, shaking all over.

"Come on," said Maya, taking her hand and leading her into the break room. Once in there, Louisa sat down at the table, her back to the wash stall. Maya drew the curtains halfway across and walked over to the cupboard, taking out the cocoa powder. There was some milk in here too, in a little fridge that Louisa had installed in the break room so that Maya could have cold drinks.

While the drink was being microwaved (Louisa would drink it quickly so it didn't matter that it would cool quickly), Maya walked out of the break room.

"Where are you going?" asked Louisa, her voice trembling almost as much as she was.

"It's okay, I'm just going to get Smokeeye," said Maya.

"Okay," said Louisa, squeezing her eyes shut and trembling. Maya looked at her sadly and made her trip out to the paddock a quick one. Smokeeye was quick to come when Maya explained what had happened, and the mare immediately lowered her head and stretched it in through the window of the break room, pushing her muzzle against Louisa's head. Louisa looked up into the deep brown eye of her horse and kissed her nose, petting the mare's mane gratefully. She didn't even flinch when the microwave beeped, which Maya had been expecting her to do.

"Here," said Maya, setting the mug down on the table in front of Louisa. "Don't spill it, now, Smokeeye."

"I won't," said Smokeeye, and moved her head away so Louisa could drink, though she kept her head close enough for Louisa to pet her. Satisfied that Louisa was calm for now, Maya took her phone out of her pocket and dialled a number that she'd rarely used before. She usually talked to Alex, but Lisa was more cagey about talking about her experiences. Maybe Maya shouldn't have immediately asked her what Pandoria was like.

"Hi, Lisa, it's Maya," said Maya when Lisa answered her phone.

"Hi," said Lisa. "Why are you calling? I already told you, I'm not going to tell you about Pandoria. Alex shouldn't be telling you about the Keepers as it is."

"It's not that this time," said Maya. "It's your girlfriend."

"What happened? Is she okay?" asked Lisa, worried now instead of annoyed. Maya was a little envious that Louisa had a girlfriend to worry about her like that.

"Physically she's okay, she's just a bit scared," said Maya. "Okay, more than a bit."

"Why?" asked Lisa.

"Something in the wash stall scared her," said Maya. "But I've never seen her this scared before."

"I have," said Lisa. "I'll be there in a sec."

On the back of Starshine, Lisa was faster than anything else. She really was there in only a few seconds, and left Starshine outside while she walked into the stable.

"Hey, it's okay, I'm here now," said Lisa, walking into the break room and wrapping her arms around her girlfriend. Louisa got up and returned the hug, still trembling. "What happened?"

"I went into the wash stall and a huge pumpkin appeared in front of me," said Louisa. She sniffed, shivering. "I thought Katja had done something, gotten into my stable somehow."

"Evergray," Lisa growled. "He said he was going to do something 'funny' for Halloween."

"Well, this isn't funny," said Maya.

"Why would he do that?" asked Louisa, sniffing. "I thought he was supposed to help us."

"Because he's a fucking idiot," said Lisa. "Come on, I'll take you back to Herman's and send Linda in here to disable the prank."

"Thanks," Louisa whispered, leaning her head on Lisa's shoulder.

"I can't carry you," said Lisa. "Well, maybe I can carry you to bed when we get to Herman's, but I can't carry you and put you on Starshine's back."

"I know," said Louisa. "Sorry I'm so fat."

"No, sorry I'm a weakling," said Lisa. She took her girlfriend's hand and walked with her out of the stable, where Starshine was waiting. Somehow, despite her trembling arms, Louisa managed to pull herself up behind Lisa on Starshine's rump. She wrapped her arms around her girlfriend once Lisa had mounted her horse, pressing the top of her head into Lisa's shoulder. Maya followed them outside.

"Maya, can you untack Race and put her away?" asked Louisa, lifting her head to look down at the stable girl. "And tell her I'm sorry. But... if you have time, you can go and do the Halloween stuff in my place if you want?"

"Are you sure?" asked Maya.

"Yeah," said Louisa. "I'm planning on hiding in bed until Halloween is over, just leave the gifts with me as long as they're not too scary."

"Okay," said Maya. Louisa thought for a moment.

"And you can keep the money," said Louisa. "I know you need it." She gave Maya a smile before she rested her head on Lisa's shoulder again, closing her eyes. "Take me home," she murmured into her girlfriend's shoulder. "Herman's. Whatever."

"Okay," said Lisa. She rode at a trot, wanting to calm her girlfriend down, and Louisa was grateful for it. This way, they could talk.

"I don't know why it scared me so much," said Louisa. "I just wanted to have a closer look at the green smoke coming out of the drain, but..." She shuddered.

"After last week, I think it's understandable," said Lisa. Louisa hummed in agreement, tightening her hold on Lisa. There was silence for a while until Lisa spoke again. "I actually didn't know she had those powers. Moon powers. I mean she's white, so it makes sense, but she's Alex's rival so it'd make more sense for her to have lightning powers."

"Don't fight fire with fire," said Louisa.

"Yeah, that makes sense," said Lisa. Louisa sighed.

"And I was looking forward to Halloween too," said Louisa. "I like helping the wee ghosties."

"I know you do," said Lisa. Louisa sniffed.

"And I still want to, but..." Her phone vibrated with a text, which she read silently. And then she gave a sigh of relief. "Okay, maybe I can."

"Oh?" said Lisa.

"Galloper has decided to leave us alone this year," said Louisa. "Race just sent me a smad text about it."

"Well, at least you'll be safe," said Lisa. "While you train, anyway."

"But I can't go back inside my stable," said Louisa. "And I... don't want to go outside for a little while. There are still scary pumpkins out there." Lisa smiled.

"I know," said Lisa. "Don't worry, I won't watch any scary movies, and I'll always leave you with someone so you're not home alone."

"Thank you," said Louisa. She wiped her eyes with her fingers. "Sorry I'm such a baby about this."

"It's okay," said Lisa. 

"No it's not," said Louisa. "I wasn't... you know. Nothing bad happened to me."

"I wouldn't call the race 'nothing bad'," said Lisa. "The way you described it, it does sound pretty scary. The road just changing in front of you, sudden phantom horses that you crashed through without slowing down, tentacles that might get you but never did, the difficulty in seeing anything..."

"Don't remind me," said Louisa, wrapping her arms a little tighter around her girlfriend. "Please don't remind me."

"It's okay," said Lisa. "I won't."

"Thank you," said Louisa, and was silent for the rest of the ride. As soon as they got to Jorvik Stables, Lisa stopped Starshine in front of Herman's house so Louisa could dismount. Lisa had one of the spare keys, which she used to open the door so that Louisa could go inside. Once inside, Louisa went around opening the curtains and switching on all of the lights before she sat on the couch in the living room. Lisa shut the front door and sat beside her, wrapping an arm around her girlfriend.

Louisa had her Jorflix account connected up to the TV, which Lisa switched on so that they had some noise. With the comfort of Lisa beside her, holding her, and the bright, pastel ponies on the screen, Louisa soon found herself calming down. She could stay in this house and just binge Jorflix for weeks, surely. It was only two weeks, and she had a lot of shows to catch up on. Besides, Lisa was great company, and she knew that at least one of her friends was also a bit of a scaredy-cat. Maybe she'd go out looking for wee ghosties with her friends, too, once she'd gotten over this scare. But it would be okay, she had her girlfriend and she had Jorflix. It would all be fine.

Just as long as she didn't see any pumpkins in the shower.


End file.
